A New Social Contract

[stephanie]

hello Socialism.:cheers2:

By Michael Kazin and Julian E. Zelizer
Sunday, June 22, 2008; Page B07

For the first time since 1964, Democrats have a good chance not just to win the White House and a majority in Congress but to enact a sweeping new liberal agenda. Conservative ideas are widely discredited, as is the Republican Party that the right has controlled since Ronald Reagan was elected. The war in Iraq has undermined the conservative case for unilateral military intervention and U.S. omnipotence. Economic insecurity has led Americans to question the rhetoric about "big" government, while President Bush's embrace of new federal programs has undermined GOP promises to cut spending.

The long Democratic primary battle masks the fact that the party faithful agree on the basic outlines of a new social contract. It fits a post-industrial society that was barely visible when Lyndon B. Johnson was ramming a series of landmark measures through Congress.


read it ALL here.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/06/20/AR2008062002273.html

[crin63]

I personally found the article to be intellectually dishonest and very one sided, but hey whats new.



The emphasis on protecting middle-class families reflects a major historical shift. During the 1930s and '40s, liberals struggled to create a vibrant middle class out of the industrial wage-earners

So first the Dems according to the article create all these wonderful industrial jobs to help out the middle class. I guess they needed something new to buy votes in the future so they got rid of all the industrial jobs they created for the middle class through their radical environmental policies and heavy taxation.



In the 1960s, Democrats turned to expanding the middle class. John F. Kennedy and LBJ sought to increase the number of Americans who could enjoy the economic and social benefits of a booming economy. The rights revolution made it possible for African Americans, Latinos and women from all backgrounds to compete for most of the same jobs as white men

The Dems take total credit for civil rights act that passed in 1964 when it was the Dems who held it up in the senate and refused to let it be voted on. If not for the roughly 85% of Republicans in the senate supporting the the act it never would have passed.



. Democrats have no coherent view about foreign policy that differs from that of conservatives.

I'll agree that Dems have no coherent view of foreign policy. The Dems want to give away our national sovereignty and abandon Iraq as well as the WOT. They want to hold hands with the terrorists and sing Kum-Ba-Yah in the hopes that they will like us and change their goal of the last 1400 years, world domination through Islam.

While conservatives want to maintain our national sovereignty, finish what we started in Iraq and win the WOT. I think views tend to differ a bit